The 47-year-old South African is a man for whom the word tenacious could have been invented. As an 18-year-old conscript fighting against Angola, he is said to have carried his heat-stricken German Shepherd to safety through the desert rather than let it die.

Sceptics will point to the biggest blot on Kloppers’ track record: his failed $66bn all-share bid for rival Rio Tinto in 2007.

The bid limped on for a full 12 months before finally being formally dropped as the global financial crisis took hold.

On that occasion, Rio rebuffed BHP’s offer as “significantly” undervaluing the company.

In the year after the creation of BHP Billiton, Kloppers, who is married with three children (one adopted), spent more than 100 nights sleeping on planes as he criss-crossed the globe overseeing the integration of the two multinational mining giants.